Just when you might have thought camcorders had reached their zenith, along trundles JVC’s futuristic Everio GZ-MG50.

A hand-sized bundle of higher-tech video excellence, the Everio is a trend-setting symbol of what’s in store for tape camcorders.

Everio inscribes the future of all audio-video devices with two words: digital and hard drive.
Combine both and it’s clear that moving tape mechanisms in VCRs, car cassettes and, of course, camcorders, are heading for extinction.

With nowhere to go developmentally, all tape-based recording systems will be soon be relegated to the annals of history.

When JVC’s hard-drive-equipped Everio series models and digital tape models are the same price, I expect most budget buyers will say sayonara to tape.

Right now the GZ-MG50 is a hefty $1749. That buys a 30GB hard drive, a 1.33-megapixel CCD, a f1.2 lens, 15× optical zoom, a 2.5-inch LCD screen and a slot for a SD/MMC card.

The MG50 offers users a choice of four video recording quality settings, with the highest resolution being 720X576 pixels, akin to DV.

Two cheaper Everio models — the $1299 20GB model, the GZ-MG20, and the $1549 30GB model called the GZ-MG30, feature a similar screen size and an 800,000 pixel CCD sensor.

Alas, for Mac users, the cameras use USB 2.0 for data transfers, so no FireWire device control. Instead, you’d have to go through an analog converter, or, download the raw MPEG-2 video directly from the device, and import into your favourite NLE.